Finance & Funding

A key financing package has been secured for the first phase of Sri Lanka’s Central Expressway project. Funding worth US$1 billion is being provided by China’s Exim Bank for the highway. Construction of this route will improve transport between the port of Colombo and the port of Hambantota.

Contractor VAD now looks likely to carry out rebuilding work for the northern stretch of St Petersburg’s Ring Road. This section of the ring road runs between the Priozerskoye Highway and the Western High-Speed Diameter route. VAD’s bid for the 14.3km stretch has received approval from the tender commission. The work will cost just over US$100 million to be carried out and should be complete by November 2020.

The lack of maintenance and investment into road infrastructure has once again raised its head within the African road construction and development sector. This puts pressure on contractors and maintenance teams across everywhere, in turn putting businesses at risk. How to manage road maintenance in today’s economic climate will be the focus of the upcoming African Road Infrastructure and Investment Congress, coming to Cape Town September 4-6. The theme Accelerating Road Development will address the

Financing worth US$150 million is being provided by the World Bank, which will be used to help pay for road development work in Mozambique. The funding will be aimed at upgrades to roads in Mozambique’s Nampula Province and Zambezia Province. One of the key upgrades will be to a 70km section of the road connecting Namacurra with Quelimane. The aim of the work is to improve transport for the agricultural sector in the respective provinces.

A funding package will help pay for road rebuilding work in Kazakhstan. The US$106 million of financing is being supplied by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. This will be used to pay for improvements to a 67km stretch of the Kurty-Kapshagai highway connecting capital Almaty with the city of Astana.

Chile has announced a major development in its transport network, with a budget being set for infrastructure growth. The current administration plans to spend US$2 billion on upgrading the country’s transport links, including roads and highways, airports and urban/underground rail. New plans are being set for the tenders for eight highways with their current concessions due to come to an end within the coming three years. The concessions involved in these tenders will be for some 1,500km of roads in all.

The first session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) opened in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing recently. Chinese premier Li Keqiang delivered the annual report on the work of the government at the opening ceremony. Zeng Guang’an, NPC deputy for Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and chairman of Guangxi Liugong Group, attended the conference. Zeng Guang’an listened to the Government Report and participated in the panel discussion of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. He reported to premier Li

XCMG is planning to establish a new factory in India, as revealed recently by the firm’s chairman Wang Min. He said that the XCMG Group intends to invest US$150 million into building a new factory in India. He recently visited all the Schwing factories in India to better understand the market and listen to reports made by top management about operations and future sales expansion. At the same time, he also made surveys of the Indian market, met with local dealers, convened meetings and made clear

It’s one minute to midnight for funding England’s roads, according to a timely new report, and the clock’s big hand is pointing to some form of user-pay solution, reports David Arminas Is there any way out of future user-pay funding for England’s highway infrastructure? The answer is a resounding ‘no’, according to the recently published report: Funding Roads for the Future. The brief 25-page document by the London-based Association for Consultancy and Engineering, ACE**, sums up the state of England’s ro

Romania’s national road company has tendered two sections of the Sibiu-Pitesti motorway as part of ongoing work to complete the cross-country A1. Out to tender are sections 1 and 5 of the five-section Sibiu-Pitesti route. Romania’s Autostrada A1 will, when completed, will run for nearly 580km to connect Bucharest with the Banat and Crișana regions in the western part of the country. The motorway starts on the outskirts of Bucharest and runs to Pitești, Sibiu, Deva, Timișoara and Arad before crossing the b